Always Carry A Car-Themed Picnic Blanket In Case Your Office Building Catches On Fire

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You know, this wasn’t the blog I was expecting to write before 2:00 p.m. on a Friday. Fiat’s released the new Grande Panda, which looks lovely, and the annals of automotive history are always ripe for the picking. However, I’ve had to temporarily relocate. See, the building I work out of is, um, experiencing a bit of a thermal event. Or as normal people would say, “Fire!” Don’t worry, I’m okay, my work-share colleagues are okay, my car’s okay, but I’ve found a new situation in which to use my car-themed picnic blanket. Let me explain.

Sometimes, when you own a brightly colored car like my yellow Porsche Boxster, you have to commit to the visual extroversion, so I’m wearing a full yellow-and-blue outfit from shirt to shoes and fucking everything. Forget becoming ungovernable, my goal is to become insufferable. As long as someone’s having a good time and nobody’s getting hurt, who cares? After all, James Murphy once sang, “If you’re not having fun, you suck.”

Now, because I’m committing entirely to the bit, you can bet your ass I bought a yellow picnic blanket to match my silly, frivolous little yellow car, and I’ve already been getting use out of it at several points this year. Look, here I am enjoying a poutine at a Porsche show with my fancy Beetle while sitting on my picnic blanket:

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Anyway, back to today. I decided to dedicate the lunch hour to the iconic triple-S, followed by grabbing a bite to eat, and then heading to my little office-share/car club, because life’s too short to spend all day in an apartment. Well, I should’ve known something was off, because when I got close, I had to turn around. The nearest intersection was cordoned off, but why?

Well, it turns out that a fire had started, reportedly on the other end of the complex, and emergency teams were doing their best to keep a lid on the situation. In the meantime, everyone was evacuating. Cars were rolled out, valuables were transferred to vehicles, I was asked to help by supervising tenants in another unit, which I was happy to do, and the big win is that everyone I was able to get in touch with was perfectly okay, and I didn’t hear any reports of injuries, let alone casualties. However, this did leave me the question of where to work from.

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Toronto has the third-worst traffic of any city in the world, according to TomTom, and the worst traffic of any city in North America. Conceptually, it’s one of the worst global cultural destinations in which to enjoy a sports car, but we make it work. I wasn’t about to lose another half-hour to slog six miles (yes, seriously) back home, and then I remembered — my silly yellow picnic blanket for my silly yellow car.

Quickly retrieving it from the trunk, I set up a makeshift office and got to writing. By now, the smoke had subsided, the ambulance left without hauling anyone away for smoke inhalation, and all the cars and people seemed reasonably safe for the time being. It will be what it will be, right?

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So yeah, little bit of a close call, but we’re all here, the cars are okay, and we’ll make it through regardless. Whether fire, flood, or something else, don’t let the bastards grind you down. Besides, life on a car-matched picnic blanket’s pretty good, and as Carlos told Fred, “We gon’ make it through.”

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25 thoughts on “Always Carry A Car-Themed Picnic Blanket In Case Your Office Building Catches On Fire”

  1. getting into 3rd gear in Toronto is a celebratory event usually achieved for a short burst after midnight. it really is incomprehensible to normal folk – but sitting in your car going nowhere is superior to standing in one of our sardine pack subways missing stops because you couldn’t fight your way to the door

    1. I remember driving my Genesis Coupe through the GTA with it’s heavy stage 3 clutch, and all I could think was “If I lived here, I’d sell this car and buy an auto”. I’ll stick to the much lighter traffic of the capital.

  8. If you store that blanket in a pillow case, you have a pillow OR a blanket. One of mom’s tricks, so I store towels and blankets in pillow cases in my car, so I always have such niceties handy. Of course I recommend a yellow pillow case for your situation.

    2. But then you have to choose between blanket or pillow. And you have a false choice, because those items are really complementary and one shouldn’t be considered without the other.

      2. Add a (yellow) puffy jacket to the kit and you have many scenarios covered: If it’s cold and you’re going outside, wear the jacket. If you’re tired, or unexpectedly stuck in your car overnight, put the jacket in the pillowcase, pull that blanket up to your chin, and count yellow sheep.

  9. If you store that blanket in a pillow case, you have a pillow OR a blanket. One of mom’s tricks, so I store towels and blankets in pillow cases in my car, so I always have such niceties handy. Of course I recommend a yellow pillow case for your situation.

    2. But then you have to choose between blanket or pillow. And you have a false choice, because those items are really complementary and one shouldn’t be considered without the other.

      2. Add a (yellow) puffy jacket to the kit and you have many scenarios covered: If it’s cold and you’re going outside, wear the jacket. If you’re tired, or unexpectedly stuck in your car overnight, put the jacket in the pillowcase, pull that blanket up to your chin, and count yellow sheep.

  12. Thanks for the hot poutine pic. That’s the keyword I use when searching for restaurants in a city I’m visiting. Harder than it should be to find in the US.

    1. Speaking of Poutine and keywords. I feel like there is a missed opportunity here to have used “Poutine” as one of the article’s tags.

        1. A very long time ago I worked with a guy (we shoveled rocks) who would buy a frozen burrito on his way to work and perch it on his dashboard. It was “done” by lunchtime.

  13. Thanks for the hot poutine pic. That’s the keyword I use when searching for restaurants in a city I’m visiting. Harder than it should be to find in the US.

    1. Speaking of Poutine and keywords. I feel like there is a missed opportunity here to have used “Poutine” as one of the article’s tags.

        1. A very long time ago I worked with a guy (we shoveled rocks) who would buy a frozen burrito on his way to work and perch it on his dashboard. It was “done” by lunchtime.

  14. The topshot made me think this was going in a different direction.

    “Why is George’s father talking to a man in a cape?” “No, the real question is: why is a man in a cape talking to George’s father?!”

  15. The topshot made me think this was going in a different direction.

    “Why is George’s father talking to a man in a cape?” “No, the real question is: why is a man in a cape talking to George’s father?!”

  22. “I wasn’t about to lose another half-hour to slog six miles (yes, seriously) back home”
    I’ve never heard a better argument for an Ebike.

    1. I’ve thought long and hard about picking one up, but I’m really looking at an advance left timing issue more than anything else. It’s pretty common to have to wait through multiple light cycles, and there isn’t really an easy way around that with an e-bike, partly because of how the residential neighbourhoods along the way are laid out.

  23. “I wasn’t about to lose another half-hour to slog six miles (yes, seriously) back home”
    I’ve never heard a better argument for an Ebike.

    1. I’ve thought long and hard about picking one up, but I’m really looking at an advance left timing issue more than anything else. It’s pretty common to have to wait through multiple light cycles, and there isn’t really an easy way around that with an e-bike, partly because of how the residential neighbourhoods along the way are laid out.

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